DTW Studio Series With Oren Barnoy

(Since I'm about 8 months backed up on blogging (oops) I'm going to slowly post about dance stuff from this past spring - starting with an opportunity out of my usual bunhead realm...)

The only constant of the creative process is uniqueness – it’s always a one of a kind experience of time meeting artistry meeting innovation. But in today’s busy world creativity is often stifled by lack of funding, space, and opportunity. One of the most luxurious gigs I had this spring was working with contemporary choreographer Oren Barnoy in Dance Theater Workshop’s Studio Series – luxurious not in fancy costumes and great stages, but in prolific freedom to explore movement itself.

The Studio Series offers selected downtown artists a 100-hour residency and commission, culminating in a studio showing and wine discussion. Oren was chosen after presenting a successful solo at The Kitchen last fall, and numerous earlier works after graduating from CalArts.

Last year I received an email from him after my NY Times article came out, asking if I might be interested in working with him. When we met for a brief rehearsal at Joyce Soho we immediately connected over our love of dance. We spoke of arts writing, our vastly different backgrounds, and the NY dance scene. I was on my way to surgery and unable to continue at the time, but towards the end of December I got another email. A residency at DTW? I’m in!

What followed was 6 months of intensely physical rehearsals. We spent hours getting grounded in deep lunges, challenging movement intentions, toying with qualities, and freeing inhibition.

Being the bunhead that I am, I was tentative as to why a modern choreographer would want to create on me. He kept saying that I “have something honest” and though that was enough in theory, I pushed extremely hard to adapt to new ways of moving. Ballet comes on autopilot for my body, and I know from years of doing it how to improve, how to prepare, and how to play. With Oren’s movement I had to re-learn how to just stand up. I had no experience with truly feeling the floor or not making positions.

It was a long process.

The best part of the Studio Series is that we had that time to take. Oren would come in with a brief phrase – largely gestural – and we’d spend 2 hours growing the movement from marking to falling down in defeat. We’d do the same thing over and over again. He’d offer different ideas of qualities – bring awareness to certain body parts, intentionally feeling certain emotions, or simply thinking about my to-do list while moving.

Artistically speaking, this was the most intriguing and challenging part of it for me. I’d be given an abstract direction verbally and within seconds I had to manifest it through my body. I’m a thinker, but the way we worked through things I had to just do what was asked and see what happened instead of analyzing too much. The results were sometimes fascinating, always amusing.

Oren also developed a really keen sense of reading me. I guess that happens when you spend so much time one on one in a studio. He said once that I have a very strong mind and that as I’m dancing if I shift my attention or focus even slightly it’s very evident through the movement. When I’m in rehearsal I’m constantly only focused on the moment – so I thought. But after he said that I worked on finding new ways of redirecting my energy and intentions, something I had never been asked to do before. I found it to be almost a form of acting without physically changing anything necessarily. I would talk to myself, reminding myself to “let go” or “keep pushing” whatever the movement called for. It’s a hard process to explain in words, to myself and to others.

Oren was so wonderful to work with. He had unending patience for me and my multiple efforts to shake off ballet-land, and he always let me work where my body was at (ie. when we first started my foot was still not 100% strong post-surgery). And yet he pushed me to a new artistic level and challenged my endurance. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to learn from him.

To make a long story short, 6 months of sore hips culminated in a 15-minute marathon “work-in-progress” that was shown in June at DTW. A 15-minute non-stop solo that builds, and builds…and builds in energy. As we got down to the wire rehearsals were much more about running the piece several times in a row to build up the stamina and to determine exactly how much warm up was enough without killing me dead before the real run. These rehearsals = exhausting. With ballet, I know my limits. I know how to pace myself. I know what I need to eat to have the right energy. I know how to draw from inside to fake it if I didn’t sleep enough the night before (Lord knows I’ve done that a million times.)

With this foreign movement and way of working, it had to be a new effort of trial and error.

In the week leading up to the final showing we did 3 runs a day every single day, PLUS I was rehearsing for another show the same weekend, working my regular 30 hours at my desk job, and planning my escape to Europe the following week. By the time Friday came, I was r-e-a-d-y. I got to the studio way early as they were setting up the chairs for the audience. Oren and I worked through the piece lightly a few times to get ready and then cleared the room so people could come in.

I gave everything.

Every time I finish a full-out 100% run of the piece I want to throw up at the end. Seriously. It’s the most physically grueling dance I’ve ever had to push through – only comparable to dancing mega cardio in a huge Santa fat suit at Radio City. My face burns and my throat feels clogged. My legs might give out at any second. I have to mentally force myself to breathe and to cling to consciousness. The applause came as I literally hit the wall to end the piece, and it sounds hazy after the blasting base. I bow, hyper-aware of my balance so I don’t tumble to the floor. It’s over!

Once that moment of sickness passed it was such a delight to see the audience with their wine waiting for the post-show discussion. And what a feeling of accomplishment – that must be the rush marathon runners experience. That wasn’t the first time I had gotten through the work like that, but it was the first with others watching.

In the conversations afterward we spoke about the rehearsal process, of Oren’s ideas and intentions, and of what the audience experienced. The only feedback I had gotten for 6 months was from the choreographer himself, so it was interesting for both of us to hear how others interpreted it. It was nice to see some important faces from downtown dance whom I had never met before.

As I packed up to leave later, former Village Voice dance critic Elizabeth Zimmer thanked me for my performance and said she enjoyed it. Wow! I appreciated her acknowledgement. She left me with these words: “It will be interesting to see where this goes…”

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TALK BACK: What was your most phsyically exhausting dance experience? How did you prepare?

modern, & teaching

Two things to post about today to make up for yesterday's lack of blogging...

-This morning we had company class with RKB, our last one before their performances next week. It was such a good class...but it was modern, which I haven't done in quite some time. I'm going to be sore, but it was wonderful to not be at a ballet barre as a warm up for once, haha. Like when I first took her class in January, I noticed how different their style is and how not used to it I am, but things I picked up before started coming back. I really enjoyed the change of pace...probably should branch out more often but I barely get time to do enough ballet for myself (it's never enough actually - and some would argue I do too much..)...hmm something to think about.

-I went back to teaching right after rehearsal. I was out sick last week, and the kids have school vacation next week, so it's a little stressful knowing we only have 2 more rehearsals til they're onstage! The piece still needs a lot of tweaking, but I'm sure we'll pull it together in time. I noticed as we were going through and having come right from that modern class how much of an influence the people I've worked with have had on me, both in the way that I teach and the choreography itself. Sometimes I listen to myself babble on and I think, Oh my God, I'm [my teacher]! Funny stuff. Oh and we came up with a name for the dance today: "Let it Go." I actually let the kids determine the name because I couldn't think creatively of a title today. Many of the movements are about release and freedom within the body, and I'm always saying 'just let it go...' so it seemed fitting. I'm getting excited for them now that we're discussing lighting and costumes and such...this is my first time being in control of those issues. eek!

Off to night class the rest of the evening. My life is so funny right now. I have days where I'm writing all day, working at my internship, not even a flashing thought of dance goes by. And then I have days like today where I get up at the crack of dawn (well, it feels that way) to be in class before rehearsal, before teaching, before multiple other classes, and it's just dance dance dance. What's odd is that I love BOTH kinds of days...I'm just hoping they can coexist a little longer.

NY Int'l Fringe Festival - All Aboard

I reviewed this show in the New York International Fringe Festival for the website OffOffOnline.com. See published review here. I was limited to 400 words, but had way more to say, so below is my extended review.

Also of interest is the NY Times review of the performance by Jennifer Dunning (I want her job), which gives a similar opinion to mine. Read here.

All Aboard? We’re Getting There…

The first thing that came to mind at the opening of All Aboard, presented by the Armstrong/Bergeron Dance Company as a “multi-media dance work based on trains,” was an old work that left audiences running out of the theater screaming.

With a beep of a horn in darkness followed by an oversized film of a subway heading towards the audience, the similarity is strong between this scene at the Linhart Theatre at 440 Studios and the experience audiences had in 1895 while watching one of the earliest moving films, L’Arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat by the Lumiere brothers. Being unfamiliar with the medium of film, audiences were reported to be terrified of the looming locomotive.

Like the Lumiere brothers, co-artistic directors Carisa Armstrong and Christine Bergeron are innovators of their field, challenging the conventions of modern dance by using multimedia. Their work doesn’t send audiences scrambling for the door, but it does leave something to be desired.

Broken up into seven sections, the dance portrays aspects of a typical train ride: from finding the best seat to the final departure. This work evades the downtown dance genre because of its extensive use of film. In addition to the opening sequence, interviews are shown with train conductors and passengers. Other footage includes the dancers repeating live movements but in Grand Central Station.

The video, projected on a constantly changing screen, notably distracts from the dancers, pulling the focus away from the suspension-filled choreography.

The exception to this is in A Look into the Past, a solo for Ms. Armstrong. Her lyrical style subtly demands attention more than the video. She relates to the screen in a more complimenting way than the other dancers.

Another successful excerpt without film is Chug-a Chug-a Choo Choo, featuring 5 of the company’s 7 females. Without challenging technique, the choreography allows the personalities of the dancers to shine as they impersonate a train. The dancers are visibly more comfortable performing to familiar music, by the Asylum Street Spankers, rather than the mix of train noises and verbal anecdotes to which most of the work is set. Ms. Bergeron seems the only one to move naturally to these sounds.

While the purpose of including film is clear, All Aboard may be more effective if the video is limited to the opening segment. A single clip could set the stage for an evening of dance alone based on the transitory nature of trains. Theater audiences may not appreciate the contrast of dance versus film, but modern dance enthusiasts can certainly be on board.